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Thesis Structure

Inner Title Page

The inner title page is the second page of your thesis. It should include:

  • The name of the university/college
  • The name of the faculty and department
  • The title of the thesis
  • The name and major of the author
  • The name and position of the supervisor
  • The place and year of creation

Use a simple font (e.g., Times New Roman or Arial) and center-aligned text.

Table of Contents

The table of contents is the third page of your thesis. It should include:

  • The title of the table of contents
  • The elements of the table of contents

Acknowledgments

The acknowledgments section is the fourth page of your thesis. It should include:

  • The title of the acknowledgments
  • The text of the acknowledgments

Abstract

The abstract is a brief summary of your thesis. In some places, it needs to be written in both Hungarian and English. If you write it in English, ask for help from someone who speaks English well.

Some places require submitting the abstract separately, elsewhere it's part of the thesis. Always check this beforehand.

The point is to briefly describe:

  • What did you examine?
  • What did you conclude?

This way, even those who only come to the defense will know what your thesis is about.

Literature Review

Here you need to present what others have written and researched about your topic. Don't overcomplicate it - just look at the important research and describe it understandably. If you process all the important writings well, you'll get a better overview of your entire work. This way you'll make faster progress too!

Start with clarifying basic concepts - begin with more general topics and move toward your specific research area. Thoroughly review previous theories, what has been proven and what hasn't. But don't just list these! Show that you've also thought through what you've read:

  • Compare different approaches
  • Note if something has been overtaken by time
  • Highlight if a theory only works under certain conditions

If you process all important writings this way, new questions may arise in you. It's worth incorporating these into your own research. This way your hypothesis will almost naturally develop - and that's the best thing that can happen!

Hypothesis

Now comes formulating your research question. Look at what you found in the literature review, and based on this, write down exactly what you want to examine. It's important to choose a topic that can be debated and researched.

Let's look at an example of bad and good hypotheses:

"Regular exercise is healthy."

This is too general, it can't be debated.

"Middle school students' academic performance would improve by 15% if classes started at 9 o'clock instead of daily 8 hours."

This is better because it can be researched and debated.

If you're examining multiple questions at once, explain why they belong together. If you want to know more about hypotheses, read more here.

Methodology

Here you need to describe your research methods in detail. Answer these questions:

  • What type of data collection do you use? (primary/secondary, qualitative/quantitative)
  • What makes your research reliable? (sample size, freshness, accuracy)
  • How do you analyze the collected data?
  • What tools do you use for analysis? (software, programs)

Don't forget to describe the limitations of your research - every research has boundaries. Write them down honestly, for example:

"During the research, I'm unable to survey more than 50 university students due to the exam period."

"I can only conduct data collection between July 1 and July 15 at the school due to summer break."

"It must be considered that during corporate interviews, executives may not share all financial data citing business secrets, so I also rely on public reports to overcome this."

Analysis

This is one of the most important parts of your thesis, where you present the results of your own research. Here you need to describe in detail:

  • What you found during questionnaires, interviews, or observations
  • How your results relate to the literature
  • What are your most interesting discoveries and connections

But be careful, don't say yet whether your hypothesis proved to be true or not! Just present the data.

Support all your statements with:

  • Numbers
  • Graphs
  • Tables
  • Interview excerpts

This will make your analysis credible and convincing.

Results, Discussion

In this chapter, you summarize the results and conclusions revealed during the Analysis. Here you need to:

  • Take a clear position regarding your hypothesis
  • Justify why you accept or reject it
  • Compare your results with the literature
  • Make concrete suggestions for solving problems
  • Raise new research directions and questions
  • Present the practical applicability of your research

If you've gotten this far, you can be proud of yourself - you've become the author of a serious scientific work!

Summary

The summary is the closing chord of your thesis. Here you need to concisely but understandably summarize:

  • What was the purpose of your research
  • What methods you used
  • What are your most important results
  • What conclusions you reached

Don't forget, the summary should be 10% of the entire thesis! The ideal proportions of a thesis:

  • Introduction: 10-15% (5-8 pages)
  • Discussion: 75-80% (35-40 pages)
  • Summary: 10% (4-5 pages)

This way your work will be a complete whole!

Bibliography

In the bibliography, list all the sources used according to the rules of the chosen citation style. The most common formats:

  • Harvard style: Author's name, publication year in parentheses, title in italics
  • APA style: Author, year, title, publisher, exact formatting of page numbers
  • Chicago style: Combination of footnotes and bibliography
  • MLA style: Author, title, place and year of publication in specified order

Group separately:

  • Printed sources (books, journals)
  • Online sources (websites, e-books)
  • Other sources (interviews, conference materials)

For every source, pay attention to exact formatting: parentheses, italics, punctuation according to the chosen style.

Appendices

The appendices contain supplementary materials that you reference in your thesis, but are too detailed or only indirectly related to the main topic. These may include:

  • Detailed data tables
  • Glossary
  • Explanation of abbreviations
  • Full text or outline of interviews
  • Research questionnaires
  • Detailed results of statistical analyses
  • Other background materials

The appendices help keep the main text clear while making all important information available to interested parties.